New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the National Rife Association (NRA) deserves some of the blame for last week's massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

"We're not trying to take away your right to advance the interests of gun owners, hunters, people who want to protect themselves," Bloomberg told ABC News in an interview set to air Friday. "But that's not an absolute right to encourage behavior which causes things like Connecticut. In fact, Connecticut is because of some of their actions."

The pro-gun lobby was silent in the aftermath of the shooting, disabling a Facebook page run by the organization and refusing to reply to press inquiries. On Tuesday, the group issued a statement saying they were "shocked, saddened, and heartbroken" by the shooting and "prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."

The NRA has a mid-day press conference scheduled for Friday in Washington, where they are expected to elaborate on what gun-control measures they might support.

On Wednesday, President Obama told reporters that he hoped the group would "do some self-reflection."

"The NRA is an organization that has members who are mothers and fathers," Obama said. "And I would expect that theyve been impacted by this as well."

Bloomberg, who has been a vocal supporter of additional gun restrictions, said he also believed the public  including himself  were partially to blame for the tragedy.

"I hold you and me responsible," Bloomberg said. "We didn't pay attention to what our legislators were doing, [the NRA] as well ... we have let our society degenerate  our country degenerate to the point where we have a murder rate that you cannot compare it to other countries."

Bloomberg offered praise for Obama's new task force on gun violence, but said in his first term, the president had "gone in the wrong direction" on guns.

"[President Obama] signed two pieces of legislation, one which lets you carry guns in national parks where our kids play," Bloomberg said. "And the other one, he signed a bill so that you can carry a gun on Amtrak. I assume that's to stop the rash of train robberies, which I thought stopped in the 1800s."

“Criminals are never materially handicapped by such rules; the only effect is to disarm the peaceful citizen and put him fully at the mercy of the lawless. Such rules look very pretty on paper; in practice they are as foolish and footless as the attempt of the mice to bell the cat.” -Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), letter to editor Alice Dalgliesh of Scribner’s regarding her rejection of Heinlein’s novel Red Planet, April 19, 1949, printed in Grumbles From The Grave (Del Rey, 1989)

“A weapon, like an AR-15, in the hands of a private citizen, alters that social contract in favor of the individual. (One of the truly revolutionary things about the Revolution was its resultant establishment of a government forced to share real power with its constituents.) My AR-15 is a concrete reminder that my government’s power does, indeed, spring from me. In retaining it, I retain some of the power.” -Robert Lee Mahon, “A Liberal Contemplates Power, Beauty of Guns”, June 5, 2000

“Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.” -bitter clinger, Hubert Humphrey, 1960

“[Assault weapons’] menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi- automatic assault weapons —anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun— can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.” Josh Sugarmann, executive director of New Right Watch, spokesman for the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, “Assault Weapons and Accessories in America,” policy report of New Right Watch and the Education Fund to End Handgun Violence, September 1988

5
posted on 12/20/2012 8:14:05 PM PST
by TurboZamboni
(Looting the future to bribe the present)

I will take Bloomberg a little more seriously when he disarms the thugs that accompany him everywhere. If NYC is the safest big metropolis in the nation, why are his guards armed or for that matter, why are the NYC Police armed?

I assume that’s to stop the rash of train robberies, which I thought stopped in the 1800s.”............................................... What is he thinking? Colin Ferguson wasn’t a train robber, but one C&C person on that train would have saved many. There is no hope for them. There are more guns in NYC that are unregistered than there are guns that are. My guess, that would apply to the whole state.

10
posted on 12/20/2012 8:17:50 PM PST
by Bringbackthedraft
(Who we elect is not as important as who they bring in with them.)

"[President Obama] signed two pieces of legislation, one which lets you carry guns in national parks where our kids play," Bloomberg said. "And the other one, he signed a bill so that you can carry a gun on Amtrak. I assume that's to stop the rash of train robberies, which I thought stopped in the 1800s."

What an ass.

11
posted on 12/20/2012 8:18:00 PM PST
by Inyo-Mono
(My greatest fear is that when I'm gone my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them)

All those who are pro abortion are guilty. Adam grew up under abortion/killing of the innocent being legal which shows that the gov’t has no regard for life as 50M+ have been killed so far. Bloomberg - the guilty has a need to point fingers.

Stop being a hypocrite and have you huge security staff turn their guns in and then tear down every butcher shop that kills the innocent daily. Call the process ‘Bloomberg repents’.

The wrinkely old money bags does not like it when he does not get his way. Alot of the billionaire club think they own the whole world and they want dictators who do what they are told, ruling the roost.

Tax Bloomers, Bohner!!!! Tax the billionaire culb into the shed. They are rich people. Nasty, too.

Nothing would have stopped Lanza. He was severely mentally disturbed. You cannot prevent the irrational by using simply outlawing it. If we could prevent irrational behavior by out lawing the behavior, this would be a perfect world.

It is interesting to note that the media didn’t really delve into the background of the Arizona shooter or the Colorado movie theater shooter very deeply. If they had, they would have found that both of those shooters were deeply steeped in leftist political ideology, that may have exacerbated their mental conditions. The Arizona shooter was a graduate of a William Ayres designed Small School in Tucson, an experimental high school which emphasized political activism and organization over test scores. The Colorado shooter was a PHD candidate in neuroscience, which is the study of the use of buzz words and phrases as emotional triggers and how these triggers can be used for political persuasion. In other words, mass brain washing.

May be it was the far left ideology that caused those two shooters to go over the edge, the hate and the emphasis on the State as the only support system, no religion and no God.

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